Mead Mosaic Project

Historic Mosaics Ready for a New Home

Jantine Neuwirth has done a miraculous thing. An art conservator and Tam parent, she has been diligently at work beneath Benefield Hall since the spring, bringing back to life two massive outdoor stone-tesserae mosaics dating from the 1930s, which once flanked an outdoor stage at Mead Theatre. Approximately 13 feet high by 6.5 feet wide, the mosaics, made of 3/4-inch tessera pieces of varied grays, terra cotta and blue grouted in cement, weigh about a ton and a half each.

William Jurgen Hesthal (19098-1985), a noted painter, lithographer and etcher, created the mosaics as a project of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project in the 1930s. They were a feature of Mead Theatre Stage until the mid-1970s, when the stage was demolished because it was unsafe.

When Jantine first saw the mosaics, they had been in storage for 37 years in terrible conditions. “Moisture, dirt, garbage was everywhere,” she said. “The walls of the garage were black because of mold. With the help of my son Henrick, his friends and school maintenance staff, we emptied the room. I vacuumed for days, then I painted the room. In order to do a clean restoration job, that was necessary.”

Next Tony Catrino from the Tamalpais Union High School District sent two members of his staff, Ruben and Mark, to remove through-bolts and wooden panels from the mosaics and build a wooden box around each one to create symmetry.

Then Jantine put her conservation expertise to work hands-on. The Tam Alumni Association did its part as well. “They lifted mosaic number one so I could work under it, then, with magic, just like the Egyptian pyramid builders, they slid the top mosaic over to one side so I could work on the bottom one,” she said.

As her work progressed, Jantine also enlisted help in working out a way to mount the mosaics on an exterior wall at Keyser Hall, which workers prepared for the mosaics while the new building was under construction. “I contacted architect Deepak Dandekar for the design for a metal box to install on one side of Keyser Hall,” she said. In addition, she called on engineers Enrique Goldberg and Raymond Pugliesi to do the engineering calculations.

“All we need is to build the stainless steel box, install it, then transfer the mosaics to the site. The last step is adding the framing to hold the mosaics,” she explained.

“It sounds simple — ha! A lot of man work, equipment rental and money, money,” she said. “But we can do it. Right?”

The Tam Art Restoration Project began in 2001, when retired administrator Miguel Campos brought the existence of three pieces of WPA art to the attention of the Tam High Foundation. The Tam Alumni Association eventually took on the project. In addition to the pair of mosaics, the project includes a 38-foot by 8-foot mural oil painting, “The Golden Hills of Marin,” which Marin artist Maurice Del Mué created for the school’s assembly hall, which is now the library, in 1937. It is currently in fine arts storage. 

Judy Wilson, October, 2010